Staff from SPEA (BirdLife in Portugal) and the Parque Natural da Madeira – PNM keep working to restore the areas destroyed by the forest fires which ravaged the island of Madeira and killed several breeding adults and 65% of this year’s chicks of Zino’s Petrel Pterodroma madeira (Endangered). They are now building artificial nests on the ledge which showed higher levels of habitat degradation in order to attract breeding pairs to nest on this area. Unfortunately two of the chicks who survived the fires died these past days. One died for unknown reasons (he was found dead at the entrance of the nest and another was (probably) killed by a cat. People working on the ground feared this could happen as the ground is barren, food scarce and under these circumstances the petrels become much more attractive and exposed.BirdLife International and SPEA (BirdLife in Portugal) have launched an urgent appeal (click here) for funds to carry out emergency conservation work needed before the winter sets in.

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